Income

There are different types of income we use to work out your payment rates.

What income means

Income means:

an income amount you earn, derive or receive for your own use or benefit

profits - the amount of earnings in excess of expenses, whether of a capital nature or not, or

a periodic payment or benefit you receive as a gift or allowance

It includes:

income from outside Australia

monies - legal tender, cash

valuable consideration - you receive goods, services or some other benefit in exchange for an item, action or promise

Assessable income

Assessable income is the income we use to work out your payment rate. If you have a partner, we take both of your incomes into account.

Examples of assessable income include:

deemed income from financial investments, including money in superannuation funds if you have reached age pension age

gross employment income - earnings for work performed including wages, salaries, bonuses, penalty rates, overtime, commission or honoraria, and stipends including fringe benefits and amounts salary sacrificed into superannuation

We don’t normally use your taxable income to work out your payment rate. However, we may ask you for your income tax return or profit and loss statement if you own a business or a rental property to help us calculate your correct entitlement.

If you have a Centrelink online account, you can now update your savings, shares and other assets in My Profile.

Exempt income

Exempt income is not included when we work out the rate of your income support payment.

Examples include:

a rent subsidy paid by the Commonwealth, or a state or territory government

most payments we make, however, these payments may be income for the Family Tax Benefit income test

If you receive a scholarship, up to $7,710 of it is exempt from the income test for all our payments with a personal, partner or parental income test.

Any amount over $7,710 is considered personal income and may affect your payment rate. We average the excess amount over the remaining fortnights of your scholarship. This means it has a consistent impact on your fortnightly Centrelink payment rate.

If you receive more than one scholarship, the $7,710 applies to the total amount you receive, not to each scholarship. This amount is indexed each year.

Deeming

Deeming is a simple set of social security rules we use to assess income from financial assets. Under the pension income test and allowance income test, any income you get from financial investments is assessed under these rules. Read more about deeming.